The Quirky Tale of April Hale (Quirky Series #1)

2.19: the second stage is ANGER

2.19: the second stage is ANGER

"Why do people think that you're my boyfriend?"

Alex hadn't been one to snort or giggle or any gesture that indicated the lack of self-preservation, but he actually choked and coughed and proceeded to have hiccups as soon as I clamped my mouth.

"W-W-What?!" he gasped.

"Are you okay?" I put my hand on his forehead, because there was a little fear in the back of my mind that aliens had abducted him and what was standing in front of me was just a decoy. An eerily similar decoy, but different nonetheless.

He swatted my hand, and most people would be offended if a guy did that, but I felt bad because I had enforced him to a rule of no touching without warning. I had just broken my own rule. "Sorry, I didn't mean to startle you. Are you sick?"

"I'm not sick. Just before I got here I finished a daily 5k run and I'm actually enjoying my kombucha." He looked at me with his clear green eyes, and I noticed the flush on his cheeks that confirmed his previous statement. "Are you sick?"

The question sounded simple, but it was not, in every sense of word. My body was slightly sick, and I suspected that it had been sick since the last four years, due to an accumulated hours of sleep-deprivation added with too much laser-focusing during my editing days. Anybody who said that achieving laser-focus was something that we all should aim was a sick masochistic. Whenever I gained laser-focus (and somehow it came very easily to me), I ended up working non stop for hours and forgetting what bed, or life, felt like. 

My mind, however, was positively sick.

For the last 17 hours, my laser focus was channeled to a single person with great hair, great body, and particularly great eyebrows. To be more specific, the times that I'd spent with this unfairly genetically gifted person. It was awful. I felt that things would be better if I could fix my brain and remove the parts that were contaminated by him.

I very probably might lose most of my brain cells, but at least I would be a happy idiot.

"You are an idiot," Alex said. Apparently, I had voiced some of my thoughts out loud. "Unfortunately, you are not an happy idiot."

"If only idiocy comes hand in hand with a constant feeling of zen."

"They do, actually. That's why I'm a sad pessimist." He clocked his tongue. "It's a good thing I make a lot of money. Anyway, when does your filming begin? It's supposed to be today, right?"

"Ah, about that. I met... Penguin yesterday, and he cancelled on Audra."

The next three seconds, I saw Alex trying out a few expressions. First, it was the jaw-drop. And then, he fixed his mouth and tried to feign ignorance. In the end, his forehead gave away his true feelings and I saw lines and lines and lines forming all over his face.

"He came in here yesterday?!"

I nodded.

"And you met him?"

I nodded.

"And it's all fine?"

I nodded. "This is a confused nod."

"Thank you for pointing it out."

"It's just... I think I'm fine. I seriously thought I would just drop dead if I ever see him again, but I'm obviously still standing. It's just..."

"It hurts on your chest?" Alex helped.

"And my head. And my arms, and my toes and hands. It hurts everywhere." I put a hand on my chest, testing it. "But yeah, the chest hurts the most."